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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28124991">Lost at Sea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/pseuds/blueorangecrush'>blueorangecrush</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Paris (City), Sibling Incest, but they don't know</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:33:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,615</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28124991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/pseuds/blueorangecrush</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The brief and tragic romance of Lieutenant-Colonel Cordell Fenneval and the young orphan Isolde Delarose.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Corwin/Deirdre (Chronicles of Amber)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lost at Sea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/gifts">Filigranka</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So I thought I'd play a little bit with the timeframe of when Corwin still doesn't remember who he is, but he's in Paris. We know from when he creates his Pattern that Paris holds a special place in his heart even if his memories are unclear, and this might be part of why.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It would be something different, something strange. Deirdre couldn’t explain why she wanted to do it, only that she somehow felt drawn to do it.</p><p>Earth was Flora’s Shadow, had been for a long time even by Amber standards. Every child of the Pattern looked to find their own world to play in, to be in, to live out every possible dream. Deirdre had found her own Cathbad, had spent many years reigning as Queen, then feigned her death and returned as a merry young merchant girl, showing off her weaving and her silvercraft.</p><p>Deirdre had returned to Amber, from time to time, had visited the favored Shadows of her siblings – Avalon most of all, of course. She’d always been closest to Corwin. They had probably been the reason their father had forbidden his sons to marry his daughters, even if neither of them had ever said so to each other or to anyone else.</p><p> --</p><p>Cordell considered his reflection.</p><p>The marks of age, ones he by all rights ought to see written on his face by now, were nowhere to be found.</p><p>He’d run a successful campaign in Madagascar, and he was being asked to do it again, and his men were starting to look at him strangely, wondering at his tireless energy, at how he never looked any the worse for wear no matter how terrible the conditions on the front, no matter what indignities he suffered.</p><p>He might...have to let himself go missing in battle, next time. Whenever next time was. He knew he was far older than the 35 he called himself now. How much older, he wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to get into it. Something was locked away in his brain that Sigmund Freud himself had never been able to touch.</p><p>But he wasn’t ready, not yet. He didn’t want to have to start a new life at “twenty-four, or thereabouts” and abandon it again ten or fifteen or twenty years later when he should seem older but doesn’t.</p><p>--</p><p>Deirdre remembered the tombstone that Bleys and Julian, in a rare moment of agreement, had insisted on erecting in Arden’s cemetery.</p><p>They’d never found Corwin’s body, when he’d gone hunting with Eric and not returned.  He – or whatever was left of him – was un-findable through the Trumps, through seeking in Shadow, through any other of the considerable means at the family’s disposal.</p><p><em>Eric,</em> of course, didn’t – couldn’t, really – insist on the memorial.  That would mark him as the killer, a bit too obviously.</p><p>Their father had blamed Eric, had sworn no fratricide would ever be allowed to rule in Amber.  Which put Eric in the odd position of both wanting Corwin to be dead and wanting Corwin to have been alive for just long enough that it wasn’t <em>technically</em> his fault.</p><p>Deirdre thought she’d go back to Cathbad, just to get away from all of this mess, but she found herself drawn to Avalon, and to shadows of Avalon, where at least there were shadows of Corwin. Not real, never good enough, but better than letting all the worlds forget him or say they were better off without.</p><p>Flora had asked Deirdre to join her in <em>her</em> favorite Shadow, and Deirdre was still not sure why she’d accepted. Flora was too chummy with Eric, and Eric was probably the reason Deirdre had wandered sad and lonely, finding so many almost-Corwins that were never real.</p><p>And it was strange, being the older sister and yet brought into local society as a young niece who was traveling from a vague Somewhere Else that nobody asked too many questions about and needed a respectable place to stay with an established maiden aunt. Flora was Evelyn Flaumel here, and Deirdre decided to use the name Isolde Delarose.</p><p>--</p><p>It was at another one of those endless quasi-military functions that was supposed to keep the men in the company of “civilized” ladies that Cordell saw them.</p><p>Two women, of indeterminate age, one fair-haired and one dark-haired, wearing clothing that was several years out of the height of fashion and yet did not look truly out of place.</p><p>There was something so achingly familiar about them. Cordell wondered suddenly if there was a possibility that they were like him, disappearing and reappearing and reinventing themselves as the years went by faster, somehow, for everyone else.</p><p>Maybe if Cordell needed to change his name and disappear, he should try calling himself Methuselah next time. He felt like he was about that old.</p><p>A lieutenant-colonel ought to be properly introduced to a proper lady. And yet. He had to meet them. He just had to.</p><p>--</p><p>Flora followed Deirdre’s eyes across the dance floor.  “Looks like you found yourself another Shadow?” she murmured.</p><p>Deirdre nodded, her pale cheeks coloring just a bit.</p><p>“I will inquire, see if an introduction can be arranged. Around here, it doesn’t do to just walk up and announce yourself.”</p><p>“Thank you for telling me,” Deirdre said softly.  “Wouldn’t want to make a fool of myself here in your city.”</p><p>Just then, the hostess stopped by to greet them.</p><p>“Oh, Cecile! I am delighted to see you! And may I present my niece, Isolde Delarose? She’s headed to university in the States next year, but she wanted to see a bit of the world before she goes, and Paris is so lovely in the spring.”</p><p>“Cecile St. Pierre. It’s a pleasure,” the white-haired lady said sweetly. “Now, Isolde, do you enjoy dancing? Lieutenant-Colonel Fenneval is in town, and I know he’s a brilliant dancer and might enjoy a younger partner than the likes of myself or your aunt Evelyn!”</p><p>Deirdre couldn’t believe her good luck. The man in need of a dance partner was none other than the shadow of Corwin who had just caught her eye.</p><p>--</p><p>Cordell waited off to the side while some of the younger men found partners. He knew the polite thing to do was to dance with the older spinsters, with the widows who had just returned to society, with others who were un-partnered…but he just didn’t have it in him, right now, to flatter the ladies with tales of their ageless beauty while his own lack of physical aging weighed him down so mentally.</p><p>Madame St. Pierre was approaching him, though, with the raven-haired woman he had noticed earlier in tow.  “Mademoiselle Delarose, this is Lieutenant-Colonel Fenneval. I believe you would find him an entertaining dance partner. Lieutenant-Colonel, I trust you will see she is taken care of?”</p><p>“Of course, Madame. Shall we, then?” and he led the girl to the dance floor.</p><p>Isolde. That was her name. Her parents had died in a cholera epidemic while she was at school, and “dear Aunt Evelyn” had taken her in until she could resume her education.</p><p>They talked while they danced, and she introduced him to her Aunt Evelyn, who looked at him appraisingly but approvingly enough and allowed that he might call on them while he was in Paris.</p><p>--</p><p>Deirdre was overwhelmed.</p><p>
  <em>He’s just a shadow, just a reflection. He’s not Corwin. But…</em>
</p><p>In just that one night, this shadow of her lost brother seemed more real than any of the ones she spent years, decades, close to a century chasing through the closest shadows of Avalon.</p><p>--</p><p>Cordell was terrified.</p><p>He didn’t know how old Isolde was. Past her debut, to be sure.</p><p>He didn’t know what it would be like for her to age next to an ageless husband.</p><p>He’d had brief, fleeting relationships, but this was the first time he’d found a woman he wanted to marry. He didn’t know why he was so certain.</p><p>Perhaps that fantasy, that she might be someone like him, unaging or at least slow-aging, was born of his own longing for someone like him.</p><p>And yet, she seemed more like him in the ways that mattered – even if not that way – than anyone he’d ever met.</p><p>--</p><p>She would go to college. He would go to war, Madagascar again. They would write.</p><p>She would miss him, fiercely.</p><p>He would long for her, overwhelmingly.</p><p>--</p><p>He couldn’t do it. His life wasn’t made for this. He had planned to let himself be captured and missing this campaign, to break away, to start over somewhere else.</p><p>The safest thing would be to go through with that plan, even though he knew it would break Isolde’s heart.</p><p>--</p><p>She had asked around about Cordell, and what she heard surprised, then shocked, then frightened her.</p><p>Eventually, she confessed her suspicions to Flora.</p><p>He wasn’t a shadow of Corwin.  He <em>was</em> Corwin.  Corwin with no memories of his past, no idea of his powers.  Corwin, damaged and broken, but alive.</p><p>He wanted to marry her. She wanted to marry him.</p><p>She couldn’t. Their father would find them, would kill them both.</p><p>The best way would be to…find a shadow of herself. A shadow corpse. To tragically die of consumption or cholera or some other disease.</p><p>Or perhaps, simply, to be lost at sea on the way between Paris and Boston.  Surely that could be arranged.</p><p>--</p><p>Cecile St. Pierre often wondered what had happened.</p><p>Evelyn was distraught, of course, when her niece never made it to Wellseley. No body was ever found but it seemed too cruel a hope that she had survived. It would have been entirely unlike Isolde to fail to write for so many years.</p><p>It seemed an odd coincidence that Lieutenant-Colonel Fenneval, too, had gone missing. The two she had introduced as dance partners became star-crossed lovers, one captured and missing and the other lost at sea.</p><p>Perhaps, in the afterlife or in another lifetime, these two young lost souls would find each other.</p>
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